MERRY & BRIGHT with Nathalie

 

Hello everyone!

It is Nathalie here to introduce  our Merry and Bright Christmas Kit.   We wanted to create a kit that will work in any documenting format, with a colorful palette, and filled with the nostalgic touch that characterizes Citrus Twist Kits.   Trina has designed this kit from the heart, and it shows in each element and detail.     

Join me as I share the contents of the Merry and Bright kit in this video:

Our new Merry and Bright kit is sure to help you document the jolliest time of the year in style.  We are sure you are going to love working with this kit,  but wanted to make sure to provide you with lots of inspiration and ideas for your December Documenting.  So, starting this month and through the next two months you will see our design team along with a group of super talented guest designers bring you ideas and inspiration. 

  We are so excited to introduce this six lovely ladies, and friends.  They are talented, love the season, and also use different formats of documenting.  Please help us welcome:  Amanda Baldwin, Claudia White, Jennie Garcia, Laura Alberts, Llanet Fernandez, and Leilani Gilcrease.  They are excited to share a bit of inspiration with you all, and we cannot wait to see what they create with the  kit and our exclusive products.

Of course we  want to give  you a taste of our kit, exclusive products and add ons in action.  Here is a  small sample from some of our Design Team.  

First up is Trina ( she designed the kit)

We cannot wait to see more of Trina's love for layers and mixing vintage and modern details in her pages.

Next up is Patricia,

Patricia's page features our new exclusive Digital files and stamps in this gorgeous Life Crafted page.   

Now, a bit of Nathalie's work:

Nathalie is using bits and pieces from the kit, as well as some of our digital cut files to document her stories.

Lastly, it is Alena with  her clean and detailed filled layouts:

We are so excited to see what you will create with our kit, stamps, digital files and add ons.   We hope to offer inspiration and ideas that will help you use our products in your stories.   You can find all the kits and add ons in our shop: https://citrustwistkits.com/collections/current-kit-subscriptions/products/new-citrus-twist-merry-bright-christmas-2021-kit

Remember to tag us @citrustwistkits and #ctkmerryandbright so we can see  your projects and feature them in our social feed!

XO

Project Life 6" x 12"-Style with Trina

Hi everyone! It's Trina here today sharing how I used the May 2019 scrapbooking add-on kit in my 6" x 12" pocket page album. These days I do the bulk of my paper crafting in either my Life Crafted album or a 6" x 8" album. Once a month I create a two-page spread in my 6" x 12" album that documents something fun we've done or - more often than not - these photos and adventures that my daughter sends me from college, so this album spans almost 2 years.

I love Crate Paper's newest All Heart line and it's perfect to record many of life's little memorable moments. I created this 4" x 6" journaling card by cutting out part of one of the 12" x 12" sheets of pattern paper that come in our May Scrapbooking kit. I love Dear Lizzy's new tiny puffy alphabet stickers and added them to the card along with an All heart chipboard glitter heart and typewritten journaling.

Confession: One of the things I love about 6" x 12" is when I get to make a 6" x 12" scrapbook layout. Kira's fussy cut 3-to-Inspire project (on our May 18th blog) inspired me to do some fussy cutting of my own. I cut out some florals, gently folded back some pattern paper, then built a little field of flowers coming from the base of my page. I used the coppery tiny alphabet letters from the April "Make it a Venti" kit to spell out the wilderness title.

I can't say enough how much I adore Heidi Swapp's new Colorfresh gold puffy phrase and icon stickers. I could have hoarded these but instead they've been gracing my projects this month. The holographic pieces ("GIRL POWER") from the All Heart ephemera set change colors when they catch the light. L-O-V-E!

One of the beauties of mixing and matching the Life Crafted kit together with the monthly scrapbooking add-on kit is you have an abundance of treasures and new products to work with. Both of my kits are still going strong after many completed projects.

Do you like to mix up your size, formats and kits, too, when you create?

Happy day to all.

XO,
Trina

Kit Love with Trina

Hi CTK friends!

It is hard to believe sometimes that I made my very first video/kit love video just 3 months ago.  A s a shy, somewhat introverted creative it was beyond overwhelming to do the first video. But it's important to me to share each Life Crafted kit and a little of the story behind them.

The soft focus for our May 2019 "Excursions" kit is all about being on the move. So many of our stories happen right at home with our daily running around, errands, driving carpools, taking kids to sports and more. Sometimes we venture out a little further to explore the countryside, go on picnics, and discover new spots in town. Every now and then it's time to jump on a plane, train or boat to go on a vacation. The Excursions kit is about what you do when you are on the move.

I hope you enjoy!

Kit Love with Trina

Hello everyone!

I'm so excited to be sharing the first look at our April Life Crafted Kit - called Make It a Venti!  I've filmed another unboxing video and are also sharing a few of the new pages in my Life Crafted Album.

I'll be sharing more of my pages using our April Add-on Kit over the next few days - be sure to keep an eye out for those in our Citrus Twist Kits Facebook Fanpage!

I hope you enjoy!

- Trina

Sunday Sketch with Trina, Nathalie & Emma

Hi CTK friends! It's Nathalie, Emma & Trina on the blog with today's Sunday Sketch :)

First up, here is a look at the sketch:

It seems like most days with my daughter, McKenzie, off at college, that my pages tell many of her "away" stories. I'm lucky enough that she calls, texts and sends photos home on a regular basis. This page is sharing one of her stories, so it seems perfect to use this vintage book page from our October Little Things Scrapbooking kit. I started by simply stitching the book page down to my 6" x 8" PL page to create a mini layout.

The little crosses on the sketch inspired me and (mostly) I grabbed from the Scrapbooking kit to fussy cut them from the smaller patterned papers. Pretty much I love sprinkles of anything on my pages!

I also used exclusive patterned papers and embellishments from the Little Things Pocket Life kit that I absolutely love. In addition, the Little Things October Traveler's TN stamp was perfect for stamping sentiments on the page. I used my Tiny Attacher to staple some elements on the page. (Who else uses a Tiny Attacher just for the look of having staples without actually stapling something down?!)

I don't like flat pages and often add foam pop dots beneath some elements to add dimension. I did this with the fussy cut flowers in the photo below.

I can't wait to see what you do with this month's sketch. As you can see, all 3 of us took different approaches to the sketch, so have fun and please share!

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Hello friends!  No surprise that I love a sketch; it's such a huge time saver for me (and life is pretty crazy right now so it's the perfect solution to get a layout finished!).  And this week's sketch is a super fun one.  Here's my take:

I have used this month's Main kit and teamed it up with a few sentiments from this months TN Stamp.

My background paper is plain white cardstock cut slightly smaller than 6x8 so I could back that up with one of the pattern papers (Indigo Hills v2 “Ridge” by Pinkfresh) to create a subtle border around my page.

For the background I used one of the stencils from Vicki Boutin's Field Notes Stencil Set (sadly it's sold out at the moment!).  One of the circle stencils has the exact cross pattern I needed so I just used some modeling paste (left it in white) and positioned them in a few spots on the top left of my page (to match the sketch).

I also hand-cut a few of the crosses from one of the Maggie Holmes papers using my scissors (so they're far from perfect!) and just popped them on top, once the modeling paste had dried ;)

I positioned my photo roughly centered, height wise)  on the right of my page and instead of having 2 photo's like the sketch, I've just used a large die-cut piece to anchor it.  Then I stamped a few sentiments underneath to fill the white space underneath (how perfect is this month's TN stamp?! Love it!).

To finish off the page I added a couple of the flower die-cuts in opposite corners of my page, popped a couple puffy heart stickers on, then added a bit of machine stitching (because my pages feel naked without it) and called it done! 

The only slow part  in putting this page together was waiting for the modeling paste to dry (but even then I just left it sitting under the heater vent in my room so it didn't take long lol).

Take care, Em xo

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Hi there! How awesome are Trina and Emma's designs!  I find sketches a great starting point for a project, as they are a building base of your page; but let me show you my take on the sketch...

I used the Main and Embellishment kits along with the TN stamp set to create my page, and of course a bit of mixed media!

I created my background using some watercolor paper and a few of the Pinkfresh Studio liquid watercolors (available in the CTK shop).  I wanted to bring the blue/purple color in the Indigo Hills 2 ephemera (included in the Main kit) so that all the other colors will stand out.

Next i used an old Heidi Swapp stencil and some texture paste to create the white crosses on the background.  While this dried, i cut a few crosses from some of the papers, and used  a bit of foam adhesive to attached them to page.   I decided to switch the placement  of  the title; so, I added used some gold paint to color one of the wood pieces -included in the Scrapbook kit- and layered a piece of ephemera under it.

I kept pretty true to the sketch from then on.   First i used papers from the kit to back and layer the photos of my son, and then just switch the position of them a bit.   Once in place, i added a few extra stickers from the Embellishment kit, as well as some elements from the cut apart page.  To finish, i added a few sentiments to the page using the TN stamp (love all the phrases included in this month's stamp set!)

I love how easy this was to put together by using the sketch as a blueprint for my page, and mixing in a bit of this month's "Little Things" kit.   

Now it's your turn - we can't wait to see how you interpret this weeks Sunday Sketch. Remember to share them with us in the CTK Facebeook Fan Page!

xo

Tuesday Tutorial with Trina: Storytelling

Hello everyone! I'm happy to be here today to share a little bit about how I tell stories when I craft. On today's blog I'm focusing on telling some of those stories in our new Skinny Traveler's Notebook (available in our Shop) but you can use any size, format or medium to do this.

Supplies
I kept my supplies pretty basic for these stories including:

• Fiskars trimmer
• Skinny TN Album
• Tombow Adhesive Tape Runner
• Tombow Glue
• Precision Pen
• Scissors
• Two Inks: One black, one in Sunflower
• Stamps
• plus bits and pieces of elements from the September "Heartbreaker" Pocket Life kit

I like to tell stories of our life and usually find myself about 6-8 weeks behind (anyone else behind?). I also like to include flashbacks from my past including my childhood and our daughter's. The events in today's blog post were from a trip in July, taking our daughter back to college in August, plus a flashback. Here is what happened.

Story 1: Back to College
I like to start with a clean desk and it definitely gets messier as I work. This story focuses briefly on McKenzie's return to college. This is how my desk looked partway through the first spread I worked on.

I documented the story crafted around two photos: in the car when we arrived on campus and a photo that our daughter sent to us soon afterward when she successfully assembled her first piece of furniture for the new campus apartment on her own. This story is short and simple. Don't worry about how much you write — your stories can be short or long.

Story 2: California Trip
The next story is from a trip that McKenzie and I took to California (we do this annually) and our California trips always include a lot of mountain time, hiking and swimming in rivers and lakes. It's up to you if you like to tell your stories in your handwriting or by typewrite.

I like to mix my stories up between typewritten and handwritten. The graphic designer, vintagy part of me likes how the old typewriter looks. But the storyteller part of me loves handwriting, too, as it is my signature. I love looking back at the letters my mom wrote me. Now that she is gone, her handwriting is a part of her that I get to cherish. I know one day all of my scrapbooks will pass onto McKenzie and I want her to feel that touch, too

I used vintage ledger paper to journal on. I found old ledgers in my dad's belongings and love that I can put them to use with my storytelling. (These ledgers are from circa 1950 and are a great way to weave a little vintage family into my albums.) Since the paper is quite thin, I glued it down onto white cardstock.

Here is another close-up. I added a foam pop dot to the back of the heart ephemera for some dimension.

Story 3: Flashback to My Childhood
This is my last story for this tutorial and is a flashback to one of my childhood birthdays. I love that the photo is black-and-white. It's of my sister and I standing in my aunt's backyard. This photo drew me in because I have a big bandaid on my cheek and this became part of the story.

I used three stamp sets for this page.

• September This Is Life "Magic Happens"
• Conversation Starters version 2
• plus July This Is Life "Daily Routine"

The Conversation Starters (v1 and v2) are fun to use. You can use some of the phrases as a jump-off to tell one of your stories. In this case, the "this childhood memory" and "in three words" instantly pulled at my heartstrings.

Before I stamped I mounted the layered photo onto the lower half of my page. The photo is matted, framed with a pattern paper border, then mounted on a strip of town fabric.

I used numbers from the July This Is Life "Daily Routine" stamp set to stamp the numbers 1-3 in Sunflower yellow. I used my Precision pen to write out the 3 words.

I layered some fussy cut vintage music with a shell button and epoxy heart sticker on top of the photo.

On the facing page I told part of the story behind the photo. Again, I used an old piece of ledger paper that I matted with pattern paper. I typed the story onto the ledger before I mounted it on the pattern paper. Last, I included embellishments plus one of those lovely gold phrase puffy stickers.

Don't be afraid to tell your stories. I'd love to see some of yours so be sure to tag us on Instagram at @citrustwistkits and use the hashtag #ctkstorytelling.

Happy storytelling!

xo,
Trina